These days you often hear about houses sitting on the market for a year or more.  And it’s no wonder when you see all the for sale signs out there.  Yet houses are selling and some in far less time than a year.  Why?  Well price is a major driver.  Many sellers refuse to accept the fact that they need to be competitively priced against others in their market so their houses just sit there.

But in addition to price there are some very simple things you can do improve the appeal of your house.  Here are some tips from a recent Money Magazine article:

Boost Curb Appeal

• Upgrade your mailbox, house numbers, doorbell and knocker with a bronze set
• Edge and mulch the beds
• Green the grass with nitrogen rich fertilizer

Update a Bathroom

• Replace a tired looking faucet with a more stylish one
• Regrout old tile floors
• Install beadboard wainscoting over dated tile walls

Spruce up the Interior

• Paint! It completely transforms a room
• Replace boring light fixtures with statement pieces
• Install new switch and outlet covers

Its amazing how many houses I see with simple things like these looking tired, broken or dirty and that really turns buyers off or causes them to make a very lowball offer.  For more ambitious updates here is what Investor’s Business Daily said bring the best and worst paybacks:

Best Payback

• Siding Replacement (fiber cement) 86.7%
• Deck Addition (Wood) 81.8%
• Siding Replacement (vinyl) 80.7%
• Siding Replacement (foam backed vinyl) 80.4%
• Minor Kitchen Remodel 79.5%

Worst Payback

• Home Office Remodel  54.6%
• Sunroom addition 56.7%
• Backup Power Generator 52.7%
• Master Suite Addition 61.1%
• Garage Addition 62.8%

Interesting…

So price your house competitively in your market (not by “I’ve gotta have”) and make sure it looks the best inside and out by upgrading the simple yet effective items that buyers will quickly notice.

Cheers, Sally

We hear various economists talking about a possible end to the recession because a number of leading indicators are up. For Real Estate, the Case-Schiller index has finally inched up after a prolonged plunge and inventories have come down from last year. Employment is still not good, but this is always referred to as a lagging indicator. If, in fact, the recession is truly ending (and not all economists think so), there is considerable disagreement on the recovery process.

However, many home sellers still are stuck with the mindset engendered by the housing bubble we’ve just gone through. In a CNBC article entitled “Sellers don’t get it”, the author stated:

…we’ve seen some more positive stats in housing over the past month, but what exactly makes home sellers think that we’re all back to business as usual?  A new report from Trulia.com today finds that a full one quarter of all properties on the market in August experienced at least one price cut while still on the market.  What this tells me is that a huge number of sellers still don’t have a handle on what their homes are really worth.  Realtors continue to say that the only way to sell in today’s market is to price aggressively.  Unfortunately, many tell me their clients are still not listening…many continue to ignore market conditions and over-price their homes.

To be sure, we’ve all seen houses in our neighborhoods with for sale signs posted for months and months, some transitioning through multiple Realtors. Many of these houses are very nice, except for one thing—the owners live in dreamland and refuse to price their homes where the market says they will sell. And since many experts state that it will take a long time for home prices to come back up, waiting for that to happen as part of a sales strategy will prove to be a lengthy wait indeed.

But for realistic sellers, homes are selling. So for buyers there are some excellent opportunities out there. Here again, however, realism needs to prevail. Yes, a house can be a good investment, but at the end of the day, it is a place to live, so thoughts of rapid appreciation should be put aside. Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal:

As ever, anyone making a major financial decision needs to think more about his or her own situation than what “the market” is doing. A real-estate purchase needs to make sense on its own terms. And measure it on cash flow today, not the hope for capital gains tomorrow.

Just as employment numbers are viewed as a lagging indicator, home prices for many sellers fall in the same category—they lag the market. Thoughtful buyers are comparing the cash flow of one house against another and the sellers that “don’t get it” lose out. The bubble is long gone.

Cheers, Sally

There’s a lot of advice out there for buyers regarding what to look for within the physical confines a home you are considering such as room configuration, bathroom locations, kitchen layout, etc.  These are certainly important considerations as they have a major impact on the livability of the home.

You also hear about “location, location” and distance/quality of schools, churches, access to recreation, etc.  But what about walking?  Newer subdivisions put in walking trails which are certainly nice, but there’s more to a growing interest in ‘walkability’ than that.  The rush to the suburbs provided a nice relief from the congestion of the inner city, but at a cost–you had to drive to get to a store or a restaurant.

More and more buyers today are so interested in being able to walk to stores and restaurants or public transportation that according to a recent Wall Street Jounal article, “..websites have sprung up to rank which homes have the most amenities within walking distance. The most commonly used one is Walk Score, started in 2007 by Seattle software company Front Seat. The site saw visits in May more than double from year-earlier levels, to 938,000..” Distance to stores and restaurants is only part of the equation–steep hills or busy arterial roads with no sidewalks can impact walkability.

So when you check out that new listing, consider its walkability quotient by noting proximity to stores and restaurants.  While there are many tony developments around Park City, Old Town retains its attraction to many because you can walk to so many places.  If you are selling and can include walkability in your list of amenities, by all means do so–that might be a primary filter your buyer is using.

Cheers, Sally

You often hear of an of inner cities becoming gentrified when a makeover of that area happens.  Old buildings will be renovated and new businesses will move in.  This often results in a shift of the demographics for the area or neighborhood.

Well, even in a rural community like Midway we see some of that happening.  Some farm land has been sold to housing developments.  Older houses are being renovated–some of the quaint old Swiss houses are now businesses.  We now have a new grocery store.  There has been enough change that a recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune stated:

It’s a little more hip now, with such amenities as a bookstore, a boutique, and a fabric store that specializes in quilts.  It even has a coffee house.  And the place is quite friendly to local artists and musicians too.

There are several new restaurants and some of them even have liquor licenses.  Make no mistake, Las Vegas this is not.  Midway is still a bucolic village nestled in a spectacular alpine valley with none of the hustle and bustle of nearby Park City and residents like it that way.  But Park City is nearby so it’s easy to enjoy its delights with a short 20 minute drive.  And the Deer Valley gondola comes down the Jordanelle side for easy access to its #1 rated skiing.

The building frenzy of a few years ago has abated and there are many wonderful bargains to be had in the wide range of housing selections.  That includes secluded mountain cabins, nicely renovated older homes and large modern homes.  Golf, wind surfing, water and snow skiing, blue ribbon trout fishing are among the many outdoor recreational activities available.

So Midway has changed a bit from 10 years ago, but it still retains its rural charm and pastoral beauty.  Not a bad combination of amenities.

Cheers, Sally